Gujarat drug bust: heroin-soaked threads worth Rs 450 crore recovered from Pipavav port

In a joint operation, the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad(ATS) and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) have recovered nearly 90 kilogram of heroin worth Rs 450 crore from a shipping container that arrived at the Pipavav port in Amreli district from Iran, the state DGP said on Friday.

To dodge the authorities, the drug syndicate had applied a unique modus operandi in which threads were soaked in a solution containing heroin, which were then dried, made into bales and packed in bags for export, said Gujarat Director General of Police Ashish Bhatia.

"The container, having large bags of threads, arrived at the Pipavav port from Iran nearly five months back. A forensic analysis of four suspicious bags having threads weighing nearly 395 kg revealed that the threads contained opiate derivative or heroin. In all, we found nearly 90 kg of heroin worth Rs 450 crore from those threads," Bhatia told reporters in Gandhinagar.

In a release, the DRI said these bags having heroin-soaked threads were shipped along with other bags having bales of normal threads to avoid detection by the authorities.

"The modus operandi in this case would have required the extraction of heroin mixed in the threads. Examination and seizure proceedings by the DRI under the provisions of the NDPS Act, 1985 are underway," said the release